1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink and to a method for measuring the age of the ink that has been deposited on a writing surface, and is particularly adapted for analyzing signatures and writings to determine the age of the signature or writing and the age of the signature or writing relative to other signatures or writings. The present invention is particularly applicable to investigations that are intended to combat fraud, including medical fraud, insurance fraud, and fraud involving other time dated documents such as wills, trusts, deeds and legal agreements.
2. Background Art
The aging of ink is an important factor in the forensic examination of documents. The ability to accurately time date writings and signatures deposited on a document, or set of documents, can help determine the authenticity of the document or documents and detect fraud, such as, for example, where a document contains several time dated entries which indicate a long span of time, but the writer falsified the document by making the entries all at one time or at a fewer number of sittings than indicated by the dates written on the document.
Aging characteristics of ink are described in a book by R. L. Brunelle and R. W. Reed, entitled Forensic Examination of Ink and Paper, which is published by C. C. Thomas of Springfield, Ill. The age of ink deposited on a document may be detected by spectroscopy, as suggested by V. A. Fassel et. al. in their book entitled Analysis and Application of Rare Earth Materials, Oslo-Bergen, Tromso, Universitets Forlaget, 1973. In this regard, time dating an ink is dependent upon the composition of the ink and may be determined through analysis such as solvent extraction and spectroscopy.
However, time dating analysis based upon conventional ink compositions has been found to yield inaccurate results, whereby such results are not accepted with a large degree of confidence. In fact, no conventional ink is known having a composition which lends itself to an accurate time dating method.
One of the most common techniques of falsifying documents and perpetrating document fraud is the act of entering multiple time dated entries at one sitting, rather than at successive times. This act constitutes fraud if the entries were made in fewer sittings than indicated by the dates written on the document. By way of example, a patient undergoing treatment requiring different office visits over a period of time is supposed to sign his name on a dated treatment log (known as a sign-in-sheet) each time he is treated. However, the patient may actually sign his name on several lines, containing different dates, all at the same time. The patient or doctor may then submit the falsified treatment record to an insurance company seeking reimbursement for treatments that were never offered or received. This type of fraud is amplified by the pain and suffering multiple which is usually paid by the insurance company based on the costs incurred in medical treatments (typically three to four times medical costs).
In some cases, an entire dated treatment log, covering several months of treatment which was never received, is filled out in one sitting and submitted to an insurance company for payment. The significant costs of this type of fraud are borne ultimately by the insurance company, government agencies and consumers, alike.
Combatting such fraudulent activities is difficult, because the signatures or writings are authentic as to the author, and this information in and of itself offers no proof as to when the writings were actually made. Other problems which complicate the determination of this type of fraud is the fact that no reliable and cost effective technique has been available to accurately identify the age of a deposited ink. Therefore there has been no quick and reliable way to determine whether a person signed or wrote a document at the particular date or dates indicated on the document.
What is therefore needed is a method which will make it possible to not only tell the age of an ink writing but also to distinguish the relative ages of sequential ink writings entered on a document or series of documents over time. What is also needed is one or more chemicals having known, predictable time variable characteristics to be added to an ink in order to cause the ink to change with time after its deposition on a writing surface.